This is my first attempt at making a skin (ie. many hours of mucking about followed by isolated "aha!" moments), so I'd greatly appreciate any feedback. Most especially interested in the usability and any jarring, out of place elements. This will continue to be a work in progress.

The main design goal of this skin is to be unobtrusive but aesthetic. Overall, I've slimmed down a few things, added some transparencies and reduced distracting colors in an effort to keep attention focused on the game world rather than the interface, while at the same time attempting to maintain a UI that's enjoyable to look at.

Credit where it's due:

Much inspiration came from all the other skins available, most notably, Info Blue, DDO.com Revised and Fade2Black. Great stuff.

Images of the Pleiades in this skin are from the NASA website and were taken by the Hubble telescope.

Special thanks to Info Blue skin author, Backley, for taking the time to give me such excellent notes to improve this skin. And to everyone else who has made suggestions, thanks as well!

Enjoy!

Change Log:

v2.3

New healthbar* images added & old ones redone

New inventory tab added

Mail icon, courtesy of Harpingfool

*Thanks to Backley for finding the names of the new images, and to Rodrak for the U12 Default art

v2.2 Quickfix 9/14/11
Until I can make a more complete update to accommodate the UI changes of U11, this quickfix was graciously provided to me by Harpingfool of the DDO forums (big thanks ). Hope to get a full update out as soon as I'm able!

v2.2 4/5/11

icon_selected_overlay, indicating equipped items on the hotbars, has been redone for higher visibility

I know that no one has posted to this thread in a while but i am late in learning that we can change the UI in DDO. I like this UI as it is not so dark and is easy on my eyes so great work on the work. I do have one thing that bothers me on this UI though it is the, for lack of a single word, the map window is it possible to get it sized a bit bigger and at times it will not show party members that are off center with the little blue arrows indicating their direction until you open the map and close it to get it to show them

Update v2.2 includes a redone equipped item icon for the hotbar as well as another request, NESW directional markers on the MiniMap (guess people really liked ReaperAlexEU's idea ). Hope it does the job, let me know what you think!

Thanks for letting me know Trasd! I'll definitely work on that image for the next update.

I put up a thread in the DDO forums under User Interface to make it easier for players to give me feedback. Sorry you had to wait and register here to share your suggestion, but I really appreciate that you did. Comments like this help me make improvements that I wouldn't otherwise have noticed on my own.

I like this one, but don't use it. I didn't say anything before, because I was not registered.

The only, and I do mean only, reason I don't use this skin is because you did nothing to enhance the visual cue for currently equipped items in the hotbars; 4 tiny white triangles (and a little highlighting).

When I am in the middle of a battle, I don't like to have to search to see which items are currently selected (do I have my holy or metalline weapons equipped?).

The skin I use puts a red highlight and triangles around these hotbar slots - there is no question which item I am currently using and, it is non-evasive.

That's a good point about the percentage markers, I agree. I'll be sure to integrate them more into the color scheme soon.

As for the UI of Rage, lol, man, I got jazzed for a minute there, thinking of replacing my stars with flames and the borders of the windows with bones or charcoal sticks... until I realized there was no way I could have that finished before update 7 overhauls the UI. Ah well, I'll keep it in mind until then.

Hi what are the filenames of the see through tabs in your skin. For example the the buttons on the game menu when you press escape - options, help, log out, exit game etc?

I'm trying to mix and match skins. I like your border for the players own health bar better than what I'm using currently and will encorporate it into what I will use as an end product. I'm currently using the Fade2black for such buttons with the "scratches" and I cant remember what files I used. I would like to remove those "scratches" and have then see through such as used in your skin. I also like what you have done with the hotbar borders and the buttons at the top left of the screen Such as the my ddo buttons and ddo store etc. I will use those also. Thank you for keeping the DDO skins section alive. Great to see new skins added in the last few weeks. I would love to one day make my own DDO skins, currently my knowledge is lacking but I will try and educate myself slowly.